They CAN make good shows?
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:07 am
Hell hath frozen over.
There must be something really strange going on. Because Nicklodeon has a good show on. For the first time since Fairly Oddparents got stale and Invader Zim was canceled. I know! I don't get it, either. After years and years of shitty teen "comedies" and waves and waves of crappy Klasky Csupo cartoons, Nick finally produces something worth watching. I mean, REALLY worth watching. I mean, after stuff like Danny Phantom and Rocket Power - I was pretty much going to give up on nick, but they somehow managed to do something good.
Anyways, it's called "Avatar: The Last Airbender". At first, the anime influence and REALLY good animation made me think that it was obviously foreign and dubbed. However, it appears that it was in fact - written, produced, and designed in the US for Nickleodeon. We're talking art that's arguably better than stuff seen on Teen Titans - at least up to par with the Batman animated series.
Anyways, the thing takes place in a magical land that draws a lot of influence from China. Chinese-style clothing, archetecture, culture, wildlife, everything. Anyways, there are four seperate tribes divided by territory and the typical elemental magical powers- fire, water, earth, and air. The fire tribe is this huge, militaristic nation based on imperial China. The air tribe are a bunch of Shaolin monks. The earth tribe are a bunch of scholarly Confusians. The water tribe are eskimos. I guess the writers ran out of China. And well - they're KIND of asian, right?
Well, the thing is, that the whole planet has been at bloody war for the past 100 years. The fire-tribe keeps on invading the territory of the other tribes. Since the fire-tribe has technology and weaponry, they pretty much easily kick the ass of the seal-eaters, schoolboys, and monks.
This is all supposed to be kept in check by the Avatar - the magical version of the Dali Lama. See, this entity keeps on being reincarnated into people from all the different tribes. So he has the mystical skills to master all four of the elements.
Well, it turns out that he's just been stuck in an iceburg for the past 100 years. And he's 12. And he's got an extremely short attention span.
And from there the story develops pretty much like you'd expect it would. I watched the first three episodes and was really blown away. The elemental effects (such as hydrokinesis or blasts of air) are gorgeous. The landscapes are painstakingly detailed. The character designs and everything basically feel like you're watching Nausica or Spirited Away or some other Studio Ghibli project except episodical instead of as a movie.
The casting is superb - with you know - actual kids casted as kids instead of 60-year old women on helium doing the voices. They apparently purposely casted quite a few genuine asians in several roles as well.
And the atmosphere, story, and characters really reminded me of one particular game - Zelda: Wind Waker. Remember how everyone said the good part of the art direction is that it looked like a Saturday morning cartoon. Well, this is that cartoon. You've got giant steeds, battles across different regions, the plucky but not annoying and still believably young hero, lots of sailing, adventures into mystical temples. Pretty much everything you would expect in a good Zelda game only animated.
I'm still baffled as to how this happened. I can only assume the marketing execs had a sudden attack of good taste when they actually approved this series for production. The closest thing I can come up with is that Hayao Miyazaki is really masquerading as "Dave Filoni" or something and trying to make a series for Nickelodeon.
There must be something really strange going on. Because Nicklodeon has a good show on. For the first time since Fairly Oddparents got stale and Invader Zim was canceled. I know! I don't get it, either. After years and years of shitty teen "comedies" and waves and waves of crappy Klasky Csupo cartoons, Nick finally produces something worth watching. I mean, REALLY worth watching. I mean, after stuff like Danny Phantom and Rocket Power - I was pretty much going to give up on nick, but they somehow managed to do something good.
Anyways, it's called "Avatar: The Last Airbender". At first, the anime influence and REALLY good animation made me think that it was obviously foreign and dubbed. However, it appears that it was in fact - written, produced, and designed in the US for Nickleodeon. We're talking art that's arguably better than stuff seen on Teen Titans - at least up to par with the Batman animated series.
Anyways, the thing takes place in a magical land that draws a lot of influence from China. Chinese-style clothing, archetecture, culture, wildlife, everything. Anyways, there are four seperate tribes divided by territory and the typical elemental magical powers- fire, water, earth, and air. The fire tribe is this huge, militaristic nation based on imperial China. The air tribe are a bunch of Shaolin monks. The earth tribe are a bunch of scholarly Confusians. The water tribe are eskimos. I guess the writers ran out of China. And well - they're KIND of asian, right?
Well, the thing is, that the whole planet has been at bloody war for the past 100 years. The fire-tribe keeps on invading the territory of the other tribes. Since the fire-tribe has technology and weaponry, they pretty much easily kick the ass of the seal-eaters, schoolboys, and monks.
This is all supposed to be kept in check by the Avatar - the magical version of the Dali Lama. See, this entity keeps on being reincarnated into people from all the different tribes. So he has the mystical skills to master all four of the elements.
Well, it turns out that he's just been stuck in an iceburg for the past 100 years. And he's 12. And he's got an extremely short attention span.
And from there the story develops pretty much like you'd expect it would. I watched the first three episodes and was really blown away. The elemental effects (such as hydrokinesis or blasts of air) are gorgeous. The landscapes are painstakingly detailed. The character designs and everything basically feel like you're watching Nausica or Spirited Away or some other Studio Ghibli project except episodical instead of as a movie.
The casting is superb - with you know - actual kids casted as kids instead of 60-year old women on helium doing the voices. They apparently purposely casted quite a few genuine asians in several roles as well.
And the atmosphere, story, and characters really reminded me of one particular game - Zelda: Wind Waker. Remember how everyone said the good part of the art direction is that it looked like a Saturday morning cartoon. Well, this is that cartoon. You've got giant steeds, battles across different regions, the plucky but not annoying and still believably young hero, lots of sailing, adventures into mystical temples. Pretty much everything you would expect in a good Zelda game only animated.
I'm still baffled as to how this happened. I can only assume the marketing execs had a sudden attack of good taste when they actually approved this series for production. The closest thing I can come up with is that Hayao Miyazaki is really masquerading as "Dave Filoni" or something and trying to make a series for Nickelodeon.